- Education & Catastrophe
- Posts
- Indoctrination Disguised As Education
One of the board members at Doyobi sent me a YouTube video titled 'Why Colleges Are Becoming Cults'. The video runs over 80 minutes and explains how the weakness of teacher colleges (also known as ed schools) has led to the dismal state of K12 and higher education in the US.
In this week's issue of Education & Catastrophe, I would like to highlight the problem of education being replaced with indoctrination, as brought up by Dr. Lyell Asher in the video. Parents and educators need to be intentional about helping children develop critical thinking skills from an early age and not leave it to chance.
"The truth is, if you want to have an open, honest debate about the most pressing issues we're faced with as a nation, a college campus is the very last place you're likely to find it. I know because I've been teaching on college campuses for 30 years.
Universities are indoctrinating students, teaching them to believe certain things uncritically, especially with regard to race, gender and politics."
Dr. Asher explains how the intolerant, anti-intellectual attitudes of college administrators have turned universities away from free inquiry and debate and toward indoctrination. Administrators coming out of ed schools notorious for their low academic standards and woke politics largely share the same political beliefs, and become convinced that it is their moral duty and their right to force political positions on students. The result? Uncritical, group-think activism that originated in ed schools is now finding its way into colleges across the US.
"The word "justice" on a college campus now means "social justice" - but not social justice in the sense of an intellectual tradition in which Plato, Jefferson, Marx and Martin Luther King are part of an ongoing and contentious conversation.
No, this "social justice" isn't an academic subject at all because you don't really have to know anything.
It's not a topic for debate, because all the questions have been answered."
Dr Asher points out the importance of "face to face encounters with informed discussions of real issues, in real time, where freedom of thought and speech are paramount." These discussions used to take place in residential colleges, but have largely been shut down by college administrators who impose their woke ideology on students.
Getting children to develop critical thinking skills from a young age becomes all the more important in light of indoctrination at universities. What does critical thinking in a child look like, and how do we go about helping ten year olds develop critical thinking skills?
American educator and philosopher John Dewey Dewey defined critical thinking as active, persistent, and careful consideration of a belief or supposed form of knowledge. It involves actively subjecting ideas to critical scrutiny, rather than passively accepting them. Critical thinking is about helping kids develop reasoning skills, getting them to analyse issues, ask questions and come up with alternatives.
Examples of children displaying critical thinking skills include:
Explaining why things happen
Evaluating ideas and forming opinions
Understanding the perspective of others
To help children build critical thinking, parents and educators can:
Talk to children about why things happen and encourage them to come up with their own explanations and conclusions
Encourage children to offer opinions about events and issues
Ask children to make predictions e.g. how a story will end
Find opportunities for children to make decisions and evaluate the outcomes of their decisions
Parents and educators can role-model critical thinking by being curious and open-minded. Critical thinking in children deserves an entire essay on its own. In the meantime, check out these free resources by The Hanen Centre and join the Sharpening Minds community on Facebook, a space for parents and educators to connect and learn from each other.
If this was useful to you, please share it with your friends!
Subscribe now and follow me on Instagram and Twitter for thoughts on raising curious, self-directed learners.
Remember, it's hard work being a great parent to your child. You're doing your best.
Till the next issue!